Two charged with invasion of privacy over publication of Kate Middleton topless, swimsuit photos

Kate Middleton topless photos lead to invasion of privacy charges

PARIS — A magazine executive and a female photographer have been charged by police investigating the publication of topless pictures of the Duchess of Cambridge in France last year.

Ernesto Mauri, the chief executive of Mondadori, which owns the French edition of Closer, has been charged with invasion of privacy for allowing the pictures of the Duchess to be printed in the magazine in September.

Valerie Suau, a photographer from the regional newspaper La Provence, has been charged with the same offence for taking pictures of the Duchess in a swimsuit, which were published by La Provence but did not involve nudity.

Investigators are still trying to establish the identity of the photographer who took the topless pictures which were sold to Closer.

Ms. Suau has previously admitted taking pictures of the Duchess in a bikini, but not topless.

Judges in the Paris suburb of Nanterre said their investigation was continuing.

The publication of the photographs, which were taken using a long lens while the Duke and Duchess were by the pool of their holiday villa, angered St James’s Palace, which asked the French authorities to begin an investigation.

The Duke and Duchess will hope that the charges will deter other photographers in future.

The Duchess is due to give birth to the couple’s first child in July, an event likely to lead to a daily frenzy for photographs of the baby.

The Duke and Duchess, who were on an official tour of the Far East when the pictures were published, won an injunction in the French courts to prevent the publication of more of the photographs, but they were sold on by the photographer and appeared in several other magazines around the world.

At the time, St James’s Palace described the publication of the pictures as “grotesque” and said the couple had reacted with “anger and disbelief” when they were told about the pictures of the Duchess sunbathing in Provence.

The couple also decided to sue Closer magazine and its publisher, the first time any senior member of the Royal family had sued in a foreign court to protect their privacy. The case is continuing. The Duke has always insisted he would not allow his wife to be hounded like his mother Diana, Princess of Wales, and likened the behaviour of Closer to “the worst excesses of the press and paparazzi” during his late mother’s life.

Within days of the pictures being published, French police raided the offices of Closer as they tried to find out the identity of the photographer.

Laurence Pieau, the magazine’s editor, was unrepentant after the pictures were published, saying that Prince Harry, who had earlier been photographed partying naked in Las Vegas, would feel “less alone” once the topless shots of his sister-in-law had hit the shops.

Unlike Britain, France has strict privacy laws which celebrities regularly use to take newspapers to court for taking pictures without their consent. However, the fines are usually so small that many photographers carry on regardless, gambling that the profits they make from the pictures outweigh the fines.

A spokesman at St James’s Palace said: “This is a matter for the French authorities and we won’t be commenting while the investigation is ongoing.”